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Beijing-Shanghai express rails to be complete by 2011

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-07-28 16:17

Sections of a Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway will be linked together by the end of this year, the Beijing News reported Tuesday. The railway will be completed before 2011, in time to begin operations by 2012.

"The Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway project is going smoothly and the railway lines under construction [in different areas] will be linked up together by the end of 2010," Zhang Shuguang, chief of the transportation department at the Ministry of Railway (MOR) was quoted as saying Monday.

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The train has a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour (kph), and it will only take about four hours to travel the 1,318 kilometers rail line between Beijing and Shanghai. Currently, it takes about 10 hours on the fastest train and one ticket costs about 500 yuan ($73).

China opened its first high-speed railway, the 350-kph Beijing-Tianjin route, last year. Zhang said over 70% of tickets of this high speed route have been sold out and the cost of building this railway will be recovered in about 16 years.

Construction of the new Beijing-Shanghai railway began on April 18, 2008 with a total investment of 220.9 billion yuan ($32.3 billion).

Zhang did not reveal how long it would take before the railway would make a profit, but he was confident it would.

"This [high speed] railway line runs through the most prosperous populous area in China and in the future it may become the most profitable railway line in the world,” he said.

"All high-speed railways around the world are profitable," he added.

Last year, experts estimated that the ticket price of the new Beijing-Shanghai railway will be between 600-800 yuan ($88-$117), according to a report from chinanews.com. The full price of an airline ticket between the two cities is roughly 1,130 yuan ($165) now.

Around 13,000 km of high-speed railways capable of handling trains traveling at more than 200 kph could be completed and put into service by 2012, according to an earlier China Daily report.

At least five new railway routes, including the Beijing-Shanghai line, will be able to accommodate trains traveling at speeds of 350 kph by 2012 as well, the report said.

In addition, construction of Beijing-Zhang Jiakou and Beijing-Tangshan high speed railways are expected to begin in August and October separately, deputy director of Beijing Railway Bureau Liu Ruiyang said on Monday.